of the spree commemorated on 14th August is not known. As to the alleged affair of the Angel and the Duchess, the allusion is to a certain verse in Coleridge's Ode to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The lines entitled Helen are by Mary Lamb.

A Conceit of Diabolical Possession was finally entitled Hypochondriacus. Priscilla was Robert Lloyd's sister, another revoltée. She married Bishop Wordsworth, and became the mother and grandmother of bishops. Amos Cottle is even less remembered than his younger brother Joseph, but he was an esteemed author and, still more, an esteemed man in his day. Phillips's Monthly Obituary would be the Obituary in the "Monthly Magazine," of which Phillips was the proprietor and, apparently, editor. "Some Greta news.' Coleridge was at this time at Greta Hall, where Southey in 1803 took up his abode for life.

LETTERS LXVII.-LXXIV. (pp. 162-175).—“The Farmer's Boy" was by Robert Bloomfield, and had a great popularity. The "pleasant hand, one Rickman" arrived, as we shall see, at the very pleasant position of being Clerk to the House of Commons, and he has his share in the Dictionary of National Biography. But he only lives in Lamb's letters. "I have written to Kemble": the play in question was "John Woodvil.” "After the heels of Cooper" this was evidently the Godwins' maid. The tickets requested were for "Antonio," first night. Letter LXXIII. refers to a revision of the MS. with a view to the publication as a book of what had been damned a few nights before as a play. For the story of this catastrophe, see "Critical Essays.'

:

LETTERS LXXVI.-LXXXIII. (pp. 177-188).—The true meaning of the first of these letters is to be found in the words at the end "Thank you for liking my play." Wordsworth did not think such a wonderful deal of the play after all; so Charles Lamb, in no small dudgeon, tells him what he thinks of his (Wordsworth's) heaven and earth and sea and sky and rivers and mountains and suns and stars, and such small paraphernalia of the Nature-Poet.

There are traces of this mood in the succeeding letter: a constraint in the praise, a certain vicious doggedness in the criticism, and a marked and determined laudation of the work of the other Lyrical Balladist! People talk of the finest letter, the noblest letter, etc., that Lamb ever wrote. My own favourite among the whole five hundred is No. LXXXII. The Albion was edited by John Fenwick, the Ralph Bigod of the essay on the Two Races of Men. Of Fenwick, and other more domestic friends of the Lambs about this time, we hear more in Mary Lamb's letters than in her brother's.

LETTERS LXXXV.-LXXXVI. (pp. 191-195) contain criticisms and suggestions for Godwin's tragedy of Faulkener," for which Lamb wrote a Prologue.

66

It may

LETTERS LXXXVIII.-XCI. (pp. 197-203).—The letter to Rickman refers to I know not what. conceivably have some connection with the subject of the short note of 16th July 1803, but I hope not. The next letter was written upon returning from a visit (on which he was accompanied by Mary) to the Coleridges at Keswick. For the impressions thereof, see letter to Manning, which follows. On p. 202 the unseemly array of five ambiguous dots really stands, I take it, for what Lamb on another occasion called she-dog. I have in most cases to take the text of Lamb's letters as I find it, or to take it as it is given me, else there would be no such stupidities as the above about this book. "Marshall "—whose name is variously spelt has been mentioned already and is spoken of in the article on John Kemble and " Antonio" in "Critical Essays.” For Mrs Godwin, see this vol., p. 216.

LETTERS XCII.-C. (pp. 203-221).—This Latin letter seems to have been written in answer to a challenge from Coleridge. The Latin style is of the worst, the most school-boyish, but the Latinity-meaning by that merely the grammar is neither so bad in its original state nor so corrupted by misprints as report would lead folk to believe. Of Coleridge's scheme for getting Lamb to write trans

lations of German poems, he, Coleridge, first supplying him with a prose version, nothing came, that we know of, except the rendering of Thekla's song, to be found in "Poems and Plays." The "Merry natural Captain" (p. 218) was Captain Burney. The lines sent to Manning "On the Death of a young Quaker" are those entitled Hester in the “Poems" and in every good English anthology. As to the topics of C., Lamb was arranging and seeing about the publication of Coleridge's "Poems," third edition, in which at last the greater Ajax stood alone.

The allusion at the end of No. XCVIII. ("To sit at table—the reverse of fishes in Holland-not as a guest but as a meat") has puzzled Editors and been wrongly explained. The origin of it is a passage in the ludicrous "Character of Holland" to be found among the political poems of Andrew Marvell, where we read that in that debateable patch of pseudo-land stolen from the sea

"Yet still his claim the injured ocean layed,

...

And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples played ..
The fish oft-times the burgher dispossessed
And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest."

This again may have owed something to a "Description of Holland" by Samuel Butler, describing the Dutch as a folk

"That feed, like cannibals, on other fishes,
And serve their cousin-germans up in dishes."

Both of these productions are extensively quoted in an "Indicator" article (Nov. 24, 1819) for which it is possible that Lamb may have supplied the material.

LETTERS CII.-CIX. (pp. 223-248).-Stoddart, who has been mentioned earlier in the letters, was the brother of Mary's friend, Sarah Stoddart, afterwards Mrs Hazlitt. To her was written the postscript which is here numbered CVII., what time she had gone to join her brother at Malta, rather ostensibly in search of a husband. The "letter from the shades" (p. 227) is construed to refer to An appeal from the Shades, for which see Essays and Sketches" (vol. iv. of this edition). I have placed the two letters to Godwin

at this point, faut de mieux. The first bears no date, and is placed by some editors as late as 1809 or 1812, which is absurd; the second is dated 1806, which may be an error. Probably, if I had placed them both earlier still, I should not have been going wrong. They seem at any rate to have some relation to one another, and they have no known relation to anything else. In deciding to place them at the end of 1804 I had not the succeeding letter to Manning in view; but it certainly goes to support the decision.

For

LETTERS CXV.-CXXI. (pp. 241-250).-Monkey is Louisa Martin, the "gamesome ape" of the Poems. George Dawe, see Recollections of a late Royal Academician in "Critical Essays.' Ned Search: Hazlitt was engaged upon an abridgment of Tucker's "Light of Nature Pursued," which work had been published under the pseudonym of Edward Search. The New Art of Colouring was the title of a book, afterwards mentioned, by Tingry. Hazlitt was still, at this time, by profession a painter, and had evidently lent this book to Lamb. George Burnett was one of the original Pantisocrats, who were all original. The Spencer (or Spenser) story (p. 248) became a Reflector contribution. Johnson (p. 250 and earlier) was the bookseller (or, in modern terms, publisher) with whom Lamb was negotiating Hazlitt's business, re Ned Search, etc.

LETTERS CXXIII.-CXXXIV. (pp. 252-274). This Phillips was secretary to the Rt. Hon. Charles Abbott, Speaker of the House of Commons. He and the Burneys were amongst Lamb's more especial "whist-boys," and Lamb afterwards refers to "his few hairs bristling up at the charge of a revoke, which he declares impossible.' Mr Tobin (p. 257) was a solicitor, living in Barnard's Inn. His brother did at last get a piece accepted; but along with the news, which almost turned his head, came doctor's orders to be off to the West Indies if he would save his life; and he died on the voyage, the first or second day out. The Tobin of this letter is the one spoken of in "Last Essays of Elia" as "Poor Tobin," for he had lost his sight; but he seems by all accounts to have been an energetic talker. The "young Roscius of p. 264 was of course young Betty,

the boy actor. The (alleged) newspaper account of Hazlitt's suicide, at p. 271, and what follows, are but fragments of an extensive and sustained hoax, for fuller accounts of which I must refer the reader to Mr W. Carew Hazlitt's book "Lamb and Hazlitt." The next letter, to Hazlitt's father, is about more serious business-Hazlitt's courtship of Sarah Stoddart-and is, be it remarked, an outstanding example of Lamb's amazing moral versatility.

LETTERS CXXXVII.-CXLVIII. (pp. 280-300).— Lamb had sent in to Godwin the MS. of his “ Adventures of Ulysses," and some incidents were found open to objection. Mrs Clarke (p. 286) was, or had been, the mistress of the Duke of York, and had been brought into renown by some parliamentary questions and answers-see “Critical Essays," p. 318. The two volumes of Juvenile Poetry (p. 289) were "Poetry for Children." The rich auditors in Albemarle Street would be the audience of fashionables who attend, or used to attend, lectures at the Royal Institution, where Coleridge (vide p. 279) had lately lectured. The book for children on Titles of Honour has not been found, but I am inclined to think it may have existed. Epistemon (p. 300) is, of course, Mary. Hazlitt, who had more respect for her intelligence than that of any woman he had ever known, probably called her so (Gr. 'Emтýμwv, the knowing, the wise, or sagacious one).

LETTER CLVIII. (p. 310).—The form of address Dear Resuscitate has reference to Coleridge's habit of being, or of fancying himself, on the point of death. On another occasion Lamb, in a letter to Gillman, excuses himself for not troubling a dead man (sc. Coleridge) about a certain small matter.

LETTERS CLXIII.-CLXXVI. (pp. 322-350).-Burton (p. 322) is Burton Junior (sc. Charles Lamb), who had evidently sent Wordsworth a copy of the Champion containing his Melancholy of Tailors-see "Essays and Sketches." Gifford is Christian-named (pp. 324-327) Baviad because of his satire, with that title, upon the Della-Cruscan poets, and Shoemaker because he had been